The Able McLaughlins
country to enlighten the darkness of the Yankees by taking the presidency of one of their colleges, had come west to visit this family. Not since then had the Scottish sheets been out of the chest, and now they were airing on the line. 'Twas an occasion magnificent to consider! When they sat down at the table for supper—and they had not long to wait, for the mother was that woman of whom tradition says she could make a pair of jean pants in twenty minutes—they had fried prairie chicken, and potatoes and scons and egg-butter, and stewed wild plums, sweetened with sugar at forty cents a pound. The father instituted the feast by a long prayer. "Of course!" thought the stranger. "They're Scotch!" He counted the children. There were ten.
"You've a fine family," he commented.
"Not so bad when they're all here," returned the mother complacently. "There's a boy and a girl away at school." She paused abruptly.
"Our boy younger than Wully was killed at Fort Donaldson," explained the father.
"Ah! My son was wounded there. Lost a hand." There was a moment's silence. Then Wully said, wanting the subject changed,
"It's over now, mother. Grant'll get them now."
They proceeded to talk of the coming election. Five families of Covenanting Scotch in the neighborhood were deserting the principles of their forefathers and taking out naturalization papers, hop-
10
